ELECTION 2015 - I Will Win Saturday’s Election – Buhari

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, in the late hours of yesterday said he would overrun the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, in Saturday’s election.

Buhari said this while speaking at the 7th Annual Bola Tinubu Colloquium with the theme “Change: How it will Work” held in Lagos, noting that though there is desperation in the PDP, he will not end up at the Supreme Court like the previous elections he participated in.

Buhari urged the electorate to reflect carefully on the present situation of things compared to when the ruling party took over in 1999 as they go to the polls on Saturday.

He said, “We have been trying since 2005 and this time, a look at the PDP government at the centre shows us that our merger would be worthwhile to save the country. Now we have the APC and the fear of the APC is the beginning of wisdom in Nigeria.”

On the leadership of the party, he lauded Bola Tinubu for creating a formidable opposition movement in the country.

He said Tinubu and others had shown exemplary leadership which is responsible for the success now credited to the party, noting that Nigerians never thought the merger was possible and rightly so, given the political history of the country.

Buhari said , “But this merger, if there are two people responsible for it, they are Tinubu and Akande. They did it because their constituencies believed in them”.

“I know that a lot of money has changed hands ahead of Saturday’s elections, but if we continue to motivate ourselves and mobilise our constituencies, victory is ours.”

In his response, the national leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, said he already perceives the party’s victory at the polls.

“We approach the eve of a moment where, if allowed the freedom to express their sovereign will, the people will cast off the yoke of bad governance. They will vote for a change that will usher in a new day for a new Nigeria – right before our very eyes. I already see it. If you have compassion for this nation that gave birth to you, you will surely see it too,” Tinubu said.

He stated that it is time for Nigerians to take a decision, or it will never be taken.

“History is upon us to make the needed change, otherwise history will make an unfavourable verdict on us,” Tinubu said.

“We must decide if compassion should speak more than corruption. This is the time to believe in something more profound and in a government that is coming and that government is APC. Let us all have faith. I’m filled with expectations of a more just society.

He noted that not all Nigerians want a change for the collective good. “A powerful, small few benefit from the unjust ways of today. They profit so much from present inequities. Hence, they view as a personal curse the change most of us would count as a national blessing.”

“We make bold to say that no President has ever encouraged bribery and corruption as President Goodluck Jonathan has done by ferreting public funds into the pockets of a few in the desperation to woo voters.

“What this President has done by wooing voters with money amounts to undermining democracy, an action that is unbecoming of a democratically-elected leader of any country.

“According to the information in the public domain, an immense amount of money, some as high as 250,000 dollars per head, was given to traditional rulers, youths, entertainers, market women, ethnic militias and artisans.

“If the money being recklessly given away is from the public treasury, the implication is that they want to loot the treasury to such a level that if they lose the elections, the next government will have no money to spend.”

The APC scribe queried that,” If the presidency and PDP say the bribe money is not from the public treasury, then where is it from? If the money being nonchalantly frittered away is the President’s personal money, where did he get that kind of money from?

“To make matters worse, the bribe money has transformed, in the Jonathan Administration’s skewed meaning of that word, from Naira to the US dollar, a clear indication that the Administration has lost confidence in the national currency and has nothing but disdain for it.

“People are wondering why the Naira, which was exchanging at 160 to the Dollar when the Jonathan Administration assumed office, is now exchanging at an all-time high of 226. Well, apart from the falling price of crude oil in the international market, the reason for the huge depreciation in the value of the national currency is the unprecedented abuse to which it has been subjected by the Jonathan Administration, which apparently is engaging in a frenzied mop-up of the Dollar for bribery purposes.”

He said the Jonathan- Administration did not realize is that it would not have needed to bribe Nigerians to vote for it, if it had spent the past six years engaging in purposeful governance.

“When they should have worked diligently for the betterment of the lives of Nigerians, in accordance with their oath of office, they opted to work for themselves. When they should have served the people, they chose to serve themselves. Now they need the votes of the same people and, having realized they have not served them, they decided tobribe them to get their votes. Nigerians are not stupid.”

Mohammed said tha it was when all the muckraking against General Muhammadu Buhari failed that the,” PDP went and commissioned an American media man, Richard Grenell, whom they fraudulently called an ex-US Envoy, to write an uninformed opinion piece that Gen. Buhari would Islamise Nigeria if he is elected.

“What an idiotic postulation! Had Mr. Grenell not been in a hurry to earn his pay, he would have engaged in a little logical thinking. A man who, as a military leader with little checks and balances, could have taken Nigerian to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) or introduced the Sharia if he so wished, but did not, could not be characterized as a religious bigot.